Nguyen, Estate of Phat Anh vs. Individual Defendants, et al

Location: East Lansing, Michigan
MSU Hazing Death; Phat Nguyen

On November 19, 2021, Phat Anh Nguyen, an undergraduate student at Michigan State University (“MSU”), was summoned to a “blackout” event planned, organized, promoted, and run by members of an Asian American fraternity that Phat was pledging, Pi Alpha Phi, with the assistance of two partner sororities. The principal aim of the “blackout” event was to get the pledges, including Phat, as drunk as possible as fast as possible so they would blackout or “die” and be “reborn” as members of the fraternity.

Before long, Phat and the rest of the pledges were all pale, unconscious, or semiconscious, and sprawled out on filthy mattresses in the basement of the fraternity house where the ” blackout” event was held.

At approximately 1:58 a.m. on November 20, 2021 – more than two hours after Phat first lost consciousness- someone finally called 911.

When law enforcement arrived at the house, they found Phat lying on the basement floor to the right of the bottom of the stairs, and three other pledges passed out on mattresses. All the pledges were shirtless and covered in Sharpie-scrawled profanity.

Although law enforcement administered 12 units of Narcan, attempted to clear vomit from Phat’s airway, started chest compressions, and with the assistance of paramedics, undertook other life-preserving methods, their attempts to save Phat were futile. Phat was pronounced dead on the basement floor at approximately 2:32 a.m. The other three pledges were transported to the emergency room for emergency medical treatment for acute alcohol intoxication.

At autopsy, it was determined that Phat died of ”acute ethanol toxicity.” Phat’s BAC, measured after his death, was 0.386, nearly five times the legal limit for driving in the State of Michigan.

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